During the mathematics performance task, I have learnt about data collection, data handling and the condition of the most common public transport, the taxi. We had to take data in intervals of 15 minutes for 75 minutes continuously. We met up at 11.30am, at the Junction 8 taxi stand. We started at 11.45am after distributing the roles up. One of us will count the number of taxis that come into the taxi stand and another will count the number of people waiting for the taxis. The last person take notes of the time and records down the data collected in a table. While collecting the data, we had to be careful not to obstruct the public walking into Junction 8. We had to ask permission before taking some pictures too. Our data collected shows that the number of taxis and the number of people both increase and decrease around the same time. The number of taxis are more than the number of people waiting and boarding the taxi. I think that the distribution of taxis around Singapore is not balanced as there are many more taxis at the taxi stand than the number of people boarding the taxi. Though this might be because Junction 8 has two taxi stands and passengers go to the other taxi stand more often than this. Junction 8 should have one taxi stand so that the taxis can all go to the same taxi stands and pick up more passengers as all of them has to go to that taxi stand. Singapore distribution of taxis should be distributed through the number of people at a particular place. In this case, there should be lesser taxis waiting at this taxi stand during this period of time as there are not many people needed to take the taxi. To do this, it is hard as taxi drivers need to send one passenger to one place and it might be away from his designated area. We could tell commuters that if they has to go further than two areas in Singapore, they are to call a special cab to take them there. To make things more organised, the passengers could call the taxis so that it would not jam up the place at a particular popular place. During peak hours where people go out for lunch, dinner or even going home, taxis should be able to cope with the large demand of passengers and companies like SMRT and CityCab can send out more taxis to cope with the demand of taxis. Taxis should not be crowding one particular place like the airport when other places are lacking of taxis. They should be able to spread out island-wide to support the demand of taxis. A good way of improving the demand of taxis in Singapore is that Singaporeans call for a taxi to pick them up. If there is a long wait of taxis, the companies should be notified and send more taxis there to clear the demand of the passengers. This performance task had me realise how Singapore’s distribution of taxis are coping with the large demand during peak hours.
